Coleus

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT COLEUS - PAGE 2

The public gardens along North Michigan Avenue are not only lovely to look at, they also offer inspiration to the home gardener. The Greater North Michigan Avenue Association offers a self-guided tour of 37 gardens, with labels identifying many of the plants. In coming weeks, we'll feature some of the best ideas we saw in these gardens. Where: 625 N. Michigan Ave. (Golub and Co.) Who: Designed by Jamie Champa, manager of The Brickman Group Ltd. What: In a lush tropical garden, ordinary houseplants are planted in the ground for annual color.

No longer are the shady areas around the old homestead the problem they once were. With improved varieties of traditional shade-tolerant plants, color in the shade can be as bright and cheerful as it is in the sun. Shade problems, as many homeowners discover, develop so gradually as trees and shrubs mature that they go undetected until the shade exerts a profound effect on what can and cannot be grown. In these situations, roses, peonies, zinnias, marigolds and other sun-craving plants are no longer dependable performers.

There's something about angel's trumpet. More times than I can remember I have grown at this plant. I did not say I have grown this plant; I said I have grown at it. While I've been able to keep one of these shrubs alive from time to time in my Atlanta garden, my success at getting one to bloom is quite another story. A short one: Several autumns ago, a plant I'd grown for several years finally put out white, fragrant blossoms. Just as I was getting used to the loveliness, frost killed it back.

The hardest-working and most versatile decorative element in any garden comes in six-packs, ready to grow. Annual flowers now are being delivered to garden shops by the truckload. In one weekend after about mid-May, you can transform your surroundings. Annual flowers, which bloom practically non-stop from early summer through frost, long have been the backbone of orderly municipal plantings. Gardeners have always relied on them, too, but their unfailing brightness and predictability fell out of favor as gardens became more informal and gardeners directed their enthusiasm toward more sophisticated permanent plantings of perennial flowers--peonies and daylilies, asters and irises.

Here's a favorite flower of Claudia Skylar, the Best Overall Garden winner of our Glorious Gardens Contest 1998 and principal of Skylar Mastro Architects. It's a perfect time for planting heucherella now. x. HEUCHERELLA (foamy bells) Numerous varieties such as 'Birthday Cake,' 'Burnished Bronze,' 'Alabama' WHY SHE LOVES IT: Since I have a shady urban garden, I love plants that have interesting foliage, with maroon, yellow or bronze leaves. Many of them are variegated also, and the leaves change color from spring to fall.

A character actor can add drama, quirkiness or a splash of brightness to a Hollywood movie or a Broadway play. It's the same role a container garden can play on a balcony, deck or one of those vast expanses of green around your home. So consider yourself something of a director when choosing the "personality" of your container and its contents. Will you go quirky (think Seth Rogan) or opt for something more subdued (perhaps Laura Linney)? Will you go neon green with sweet potato vines or mix it up with purples and yellows?

Why is it that the pots and window boxes planted by professionals seem so much better than everyone else's does? Talent, of course, is one reason, but so too is the use of filler plants that many amateurs are either unaware of or never think to consider. The reason, I guess, is that most gardeners are so busy thinking of the star players -- the primary flowering plants -- that will compose the window box that they simply forget about plants that can provide background and balance to the entire composition.

Many plants are easy to share -- maybe too easy. A friend may have mint, lily-of-the-valley or violets to spare because they are aggressive spreaders. Such plants can cause headaches and backaches unless you place them where they can't crowd out everything else. Plants that readily reseed, such as cleome, also may sometimes be a nuisance. Some plants may bear pests or have weeds or weed seeds in their soil. So examine gifts carefully before planting them. Invasive plants such as purple loosestrife -- which is choking wetlands and destroying ecosystems from coast to coast -- probably were passed from hand to hand by well-meaning gardeners.

Q--I recently admired and bought a hanging basket of a plant that has succulent, rounded leaves and pale blue flowers that stand out all around on thin, wiry stems. It looks like a kalanchoe to me, but the label says Streptocarpus saxorum. What care is needed? A--You have a gesneriad, related to African violet and florist gloxinia. Streptocarpus of the saxorum type actually belong in a subgenus known as Streptocarpella, and they make superb container plants, indoors all year or outdoors in warm weather.

All Bromeliads are valued as exotic, easy-to-grow houseplants, but one most likely to be found in collections of discerning indoor plant buffs is Vriesea splendens, more commonly known as Flaming Sword. Attractive at any time with its brown-striped, stiff green leaves, Vriesea turns into a conversation piece when it sends up its unusual flowering stalk, from which it derives its popular name. The plant is more restrained in growth than most other Bromeliads but is just as carefree as others in the species.